ECR Fettling

ECR Fettling

Given that I’m heading off to the mountains of Crete in 10 days time I figured I should probably spend a bit of time fettling the configuration of my ECR for what will be its shake-down cruise prior to a bigger journey at the end of the summer. Travelling light with a tarp instead of a tent but still geared for some potentially cold and wet days up in the mountains. I do enjoy fiddling with stuff such as this.. bits and pieces of customisation to existing kit and working out the most efficient configuration for happy days on back country trails. My only concession to new stuff was a new custom framebag from Alpkit, the ECR frame triangle is quite a bit smaller, and a very different shape to that on my Nomad.. but the Alpkit stuff is great value and really well made so no issues with forking out for it. The rest of the stuff was already here.

The Camper sits on a standard Bagman support which felt a bit flexible/flimsy for rough trails with a full load.. so I made up a couple of additional struts from 6mm stainless tubing which run from the support down to bosses on the seatstays. They have the happy benefit of providing extra luggage space – the tyre clearance is tight so to stop a drybag pushing down and rubbing on the tyre I made a cross-piece to support a dry bag here. It’s just a piece cut from the broken lid of an old plastic storage bin I had kicking around in the shed, with stiffening ribs moulded in it is just perfect. A few zip-ties hold it in place.

lovely Nitto M18 rack on the front. Has only seen very light duty up… until now… :-)

It’s only a short trip but very much looking forward to sunny days on empty trails… and the occasional secluded beach or two :-)